Friday, 20 December 2013

We hope to soon start a project which will examine the status and conservation needs of endemic
birds on the remote islands of Sangihe and Talaud. Here, Stu, Nigel Collar
(BirdLife International) and Roland Wirth (ZGAP) discuss the islands’
incredible ornithological importance, the lack of recent knowledge of their
birds, and, with the recent seizure of a
large illegal shipment of endemic parrots on Talaud, the desperate need for
conservation action on the islands.

The Sangihe and Talaud islands, Indonesia, situated to the south of the Philippines and north of Sulawesi

The
small and remote Indonesian islands of Sangihe and Talaud hold the highest
concentration of highly threatened bird species anywhere in Asia (and possibly
the world). The islands, with a land area of only 2,000 sq km, have long been
noted for their endemism and conservation importance, but only now is the
degree of this importance truly emerging. Fifteen years ago, Stattersfield et al. (1998) listed five species of
bird restricted to the Sangihe and Talaud ‘Endemic Bird Area’. Since then,
however, a proliferation of taxonomic revisions and discoveries has resulted in
the addition of several more species - Sangihe now possesses nine endemic bird
species and Talaud four. Incredibly, there are six Critically endangered, three
Endangered, and two Vulnerable bird species in an area a little larger than
Greater London.

One of the few non-threatened endemic birds on Sangihe and the only one named after Nigel: Sangihe Scops-owl Otus collari (Photo: James Eaton, www.birdtourasia.com)

Most
of these species are dependent on the islands’ dwindling forest. Critically, there
appears to have been no update on the status of birds in the islands since the
Action Sampiri expeditions of the mid- to late 1990s (Riley 1997; Riley &
Wardill 2001), which were financed in part by Loro Parque Fundación. There are,
however, reports of declines in some forest species, e.g. Caerulean
Paradise-flycatcher and Sangihe Shrike-thrush (Sykes 2009), numbers of which
appear to lie in the region of just 20‒50 individuals each. Moreover, this
century, despite annual visits by bird tours, the Sangihe Golden Bulbul appears
to have been seen only twice and the Sangihe Dwarf-kingfisher and Sangihe
White-eye not at all.

One of only three specimens of Sangihe Golden Bulbul. This from Naturalis, Leiden (Photo: Nigel Collar)

A
recent visit to northern Sulawesi by Roland Wirth revealed potentially
devastating news for the islands’ birds. A consignment of 111 Red-and-blue Lories
were seized by police in Talaud in November 2013. These birds were bound for the
Philippines. Reports suggest that 800 or as many as 1,800 lories per year are
taken from the island by this one dealer. As well as trade in its own parrots, Talaud appears
to also be a major stepping stone of wildlife trade from elsewhere in Indonesia to the
Philippines. A rare Javan leopard Panthera pardus melas was also
confiscated in the Talaud islands some time ago.

Shipment
of 111 Red-and-blue Lories confiscated in Talaud. All birds were covered in
honey solution, so birds would lick each other and remain quiet
during the smuggling (Photo: Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Center).

According
to Michael Wangko of the local NGO KOMPAK, there are now fewer than ten known
roosts left occupied by lories on the island - each with just 100-300
birds. Parrots are
captured at these roosts by covering branches with sticky bird lime or snares made of nylon fishing line. The surviving birds
are now being cared for by Simon Purser and staff at the Tasikoki Wildlife
Rescue Centre (www.tasikoki.org) in northern Sulawesi.

Our
project aims to

Estimate densities,
population sizes and examine habitat associations of all birds;

Identify current forest
coverage and forest loss over the last 20 years;

Evaluate human use of and
impacts on protected areas and other key sites

Evaluate trade and trapping
pressure on all parrot species

Make recommendations for
habitat management, site regulation and policy improvement.

References

Riley,
J. (1997) Biological surveys and
conservation priorities on the Sangihe and Talaud

About the Research Group and blog

This blog includes posts by members of Stuart Marsden's conservation research group based in the School of Science & the Environment at Manchester Metropolitan University. The group mainly includes PhD students working on the conservation ecology of birds and other wildlife, often in the tropics. We also have posts from other collaborators and alumni.